8th Goodguys Nashville Nationals

Greening Car Company
It has become more popular recently that hot rod shops will hold an open house in the days before a major car show comes to their hometown. Such is the case with the Goodguys Nashville Nationals and Greening Car Company.

Greening, run by the father/son team of Jeff and Jesse Greening, has built an impressive list of award-winning cars and has recently expanded their business to include their own line of parts and wheels. Put “on the map” after they built the winner of the 2001 Ridler award for Paul Atkins, the team moved from where they started in Cullman, Alabama, to Nashville four years ago, and it's been gung ho ever since.

2/30The father and son team of Jeff and Jesse Greening own Greening Auto Company, and they’ve really been on a creative roll of late. After moving from Alabama to Tennessee four years ago, they’ve expanded their business to include road wheels, steering wheels, and specialty parts.

Their shop is 15,000 square feet and includes CNC machines and a semi-downdraft paint booth. They took the opportunity on the Wednesday night before the show to debut a few of their recent builds, provide some entertainment, and host a couple of lunch trucks that served both Southern and Korean food. This was the first year for the Greenings to have an open house, so we imagine this function will only get larger in the years to come.

3/30James Otto isn’t just a country music star (Billboard No. 1 with "Just Got Started Lovin’ You"), he’s also a customer of Greening with his ’66 Chevy truck. Otto was on hand to sing a few songs at the open house before going back on tour.

Advanced Plating Open House
Chances are good that you have some chrome parts on your car that came from Advanced Plating. If not, there's also a chance you have some in your home, as Advanced Plating is a diverse chrome plating shop that has many different commercial accounts—everything from Gibson and Fender guitars to General Electric.

For the past couple of years, owner Steve Tracy has thrown open the doors to his 60,000-square-foot facility, brought in a band, and provided some excellent grub, as their open house served as the official kick-off party to the Goodguys event that weekend.

7/30For the past few years Cajun Kenny has served up his own special mix of jambalaya out of huge tubs for the masses at the open house—and it’s really good stuff!

Some chrome shops you visit are pretty grubby because of the nature of the business (with metal polishing and acid dipping), but Advanced Plating is spotless, and it's an obvious result of the care and attention they put forth in their work.

With the disastrous flood that hit Nashville in 2010, Advanced was submerged under 59 inches of water, but they rebuilt and are now back and operating at peak performance, which is good news for all of us who like shiny stuff on our cars!

8/30Steve Tracy and his wife, Sheri, worked their way up from being employees to owning Advanced Plating.

8th Nashville NationalsGoodguys Invade Music City
With the help of a television show of the same name, Nashville has been slowly moving into the national social consciousness, but hot rodders have known for years Nashville is the place to be.

That's because eight years ago the Goodguys Rod & Custom Association rolled into town and set up shop at LP Field, the 105-acre facility and stadium home to the Tennessee Titans NFL football team. The site has 7,500 parking spaces, and the Goodguys do their best to fill them with every type of hot rod.

12/30

This year a record number of cars drove through the gates, and that was even with the rainstorms on Friday. Attendees have to pay attention to the weather here—in 2010 the nearby Cumberland River overflowed its banks and put the facility under several feet of water just a couple of weeks before the car show.

But, for the most part, the weather cooperated this year and the event went off without a hitch, and the high quality of the cars from this region of the country was evident. Rod builder (and Tennessee local) Bobby Alloway, who was on hand to pick the Builder's Choice winners, commented he had a hard time selecting which cars would get a nod because there were so many to choose from. Likewise, this event was also one of the 10 locations from which STREET RODDER hands out its Painless Wiring Top 100 awards, and it was the same dilemma: too many nice cars!

13/30

The show had its usual parking areas set aside for specialty rides (Deuce Doins, Ya Gotta Drive 'Em, Trick Truck Corral, and so on) and the pits for the Autocross seemed to overflow with contestants eager to test the limits of their driving abilities as well as their car through a timed road course set up on the grounds. The autocross portion of the Goodguys show is becoming more and more popular, and folks were four deep in some areas trying to view the cars flying around the track. Anyone who enters their car in the show is eligible to drive the racecourse, so it's a shame not more pre-1949 vehicles enter. After all, you can only watch a 1968 Camaro squeal its tires for so long before you want to go back to the car show! This year is also the first time Goodguys is offering $10,000 in prizes by organizing a National AutoCross Shootout that will culminate at the end of the year.

Goodguys is also celebrating its 30th anniversary as an organization, and they've gotten this far by giving the people what they want: a fun place to bring their family and spend some time with some really cool cars. It's a formula that will continue to work well for them, far into the future.

14/30Eli Griffin says he "drives the hell out of it" when referring to his 1934 Chevy, which is equipped with a small tag-along trailer for those extra-long trips.

PAINLESS TECH TIPSolar Panel Charging
If you are one of us who parks a car for long periods of time at an airport, there are solar panels you can put on the dash and plug into your dash accessory port to help maintain a good charge in the battery.

30/30Lots of mid-’60s cars were out on the autocross course Saturday and Sunday, but unfortunately only a few pre-’49 cars. Easily one of the most impressive (and fastest) was Bret Voelkel’s flat black Factory Five coupe. Voelkel, who owns RideTech, won the Street Rod Class title after last year’s racing season, was hard at it again this year. The racing pits looked like what you use to find on grudge nights at some old dragstrips: full of cars and people.